'It contained a part,' he said, 'in which Kate would succeed in establishing herself one of London's favourites;' but his praise of her singing and acting set her wondering if he were gulling her once more, or if he still believed in her. It might be that her continued sobriety had reawakened his old love for her, and she remembered suddenly that she had never really cared for drink, and never would have touched drink if Dick had not driven her mad with jealousy. And the fact that her voice had returned to her helped her to believe that Dick was sincere when he told her that she would be a better Fredegonde than Blanche D'Antigny, who created the part originally. Montgomery endorsed this view one evening; he refused to take 'no' for an answer: she must sing the score through with him, and several times he stopped playing; and looking up in her face told her he had never known a voice to improve so rapidly and so suddenly. Dick nodded his acquiescence in Montgomery's opinion and hoped there would be no more need to tell Kate lies once she was settled in a lodging behind the Cattle Market. But in this he was mistaken, for in London the need to keep up the fiction of Hervé's American admirer was more necessary than at Margate. Dick had to relate his different quests every evening. He had been after the Lyceum, but was unable to get an answer from the lessee; he hoped to get one next week; and when next week came he spoke about the Royalty and the Adelphi and the Haymarket, neglecting, however, to mention the theatre in which he hoped to produce Laura's opera. 'The large stage of the Lyceum would be excellently well suited,' he said, 'for a fine production of _Chilpéric_,' and he besought Kate to apply herself to the study of the part of Fredegonde. His imagination led him into dreams of an English company going over to Paris with all Hervé's works, and Kate obliterating the Blanche D'Antigny tradition. Kate listened delighted, discovering in Dick's praise of her singing a hope that his love of her had survived the many tribulations it had been through; and while listening she vowed she would never touch drink again. Nor did her happiness vanish till morning, till she saw him struggling into his greatcoat, and foresaw the long dividing hours. But he had said so many kind things overnight that she was behoven to stifle complaint, and bore with her loneliness all day long refusing food, for without Dick's presence food had no pleasure for her, however hungry she might be. She would wait contented hour after hour if she could have him to herself when he returned. But sometimes he would bring back a friend with him, and the pair would sit up talking of women and their aptitudes in different parts. As none of them were known personally to Kate, the names they mentioned suggested only new causes for jealousy, and the thought that Dick was living among all these women while she was hidden away in this lodging from night till morning, from morning